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Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM DO IS - Review / Lab Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
Canon EOS (APS-C)
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Page 1 of 2
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published February 2006
Introduction
The Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM DO IS is a very special lens - not so much regarding
its naked specifications but because of its DO design. DO refers to a multi-layer
Diffractive Optical element that bends light steeper
than conventional (refractive) elements thus allowing a shorter design in conjunction
with less color fringing and less spherical
aberrations. It is the second Canon EF lens to use this technology with the first one being the Canon
EF 400mm f/4 USM DO IS. The DO lenses form a new group within the Canon lens hierarchy
distinguishable via a green ring at the lens front rather than the red one used for L
class lenses.
The DO element is also visually recognizable (unlike UD or CaF2 elements). In
the image below you may notice the concentric circles in the glass.
On APS-C DSLRs the field of view of the EF 70-300mm DO is equivalent to 112-480mm. It's
a full frame lens and as such compatible to all EOS cameras out there.
One key selling factor for this lens is naturally the Image Stabilizer (IS). Camera motion is detected
by 2 gyro sensors which measure the angle and speed of the shake. This information is used to shift
a lens group off the optical axis (basically a forced decentering) to counteract this motion.
The result is a significant improvement of handholdibility (3 f-stops equivalent). The IS in
the EF 70-300mm DO offers 2 different modes:
mode (1) for static scenes where the IS corrects shake both vertically as well as horizontally
mode (2) for action photography (object tracking) where only vertical shake is corrected
Please note that IS has its limitations - you may be able to shoot at much slower shutter speeds
but slow shutter speeds come at risk of motion blurr (of fast moving objects in your scene).
That said IS is immensely useful in many field situations.
As you can see above the lens has a rather conventional mechanical design. It extends towards
the long end of the zoom range. Size-wise it is fat lens being very short (28% shorter
according to Canon) for such a tele photo lens but with a very large lens diameter. At 720g it isn't especially light
weight but the pretty good build quality, located somewhere between Canon consumer grade and
L class lenses, takes its toll here. As a negative side effect of the additional weight
the zoom mechanism has a rather strong tendency to creep when tilting the lens up- or downwards.
Canon has integrated a zoom locking switch but unfortunately this works in the 70mm position
only.
Thanks to a ring-type USM drive the AF speed is very fast and basically silent. FTM (full-time
manual focusing) is always possible in one-shot AF mode. Unlike most consumer grade lenses
the EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO USM IS has a non-rotating front element.
Interestingly the primary competitor for the lens is also made by Canon - the recently introduced
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 USM IS which follows a more conventional design approach. Here's a
comparison of the naked specifications:
| LENS |
EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6
USM DO IS |
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6
USM IS |
| design: |
18 elements in 12 groups with 1x DO element |
15 elements in 10 groups with 1x UD element |
| size: |
82x100mm |
77x143mm |
| weight: |
720g |
630 |
| image stabilizer efficiency: |
3 f-stops, 2 modes |
3 f-stops, 2 modes |
| aperture blades: |
6 |
8 |
| min. focus: |
1.4m |
1.5m |
| filter size: |
58mm |
58mm |
| AF motor |
ring-type USM with FTM and non-rotating front element |
micro-USM, no FTM, rotating front element |
| approx price tag: |
1100 EUR/US$ |
550 EUR/US$ |
As you may notice most of the specs are fairly similar. It'll be interesting to see
whether the DO lens is really worth the double price tag ...
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